The Shape of a Life
by yeah that's me
Summary: A Rohirric child, a victim of war, becomes enamored of an Elf. And in the end that makes all the difference.
1. prologue

I'm not totally sure where this is going. Right now it's just a Rohirric child, a victim of war, sees her first Elf and is changed forever by it.

* * *

She sawed off her curls with a knife, carefully aiming the sharp edge outwards and away from her neck. The hanks of hair fell to the earth. She buried them, then smudged her pale face with the grime on her hands. She plundered the bodies of the dead, peeling clothes from their lifeless, stinking bodies. Tears burned in her eyes, along with smoke. She felt leaden, numb. It caused her only the slightest twinge of disgust to pull off her own wool dress and disguise herself in the salvaged clothes of a little boy who lay dead and bleeding in the dust by the stables.

There were no horses left. She packed a spare set of clothes, a small dagger, a bow and a quiver full of arrows. Then she set off on foot across the plains with the five other survivors: all children. All blank faces, stunned and silenced. All tiny in the face of their horror. They did not know where they were going. They stumbled in a straight line towards the setting sun.

* * *

She was cold with terror. Her mind was crystalline, sharp as ice. Her numb lips formed the words, and her voice spoke them: wavering, clear. The brutish Orc heads turned, their bloody teeth bared in savage smiles. She pointed, spoke again. They seized her by the shoulders and forced her ahead of them, prodding her in the back to lead the way. And she did.

Footstep after footstep, one neatly after another in the swaying grass, she led them to the other children. To save her own life. To save her heart still beating, pounding a tattoo against her ribs, to save her lungs, sucking in the dusky air. To save her eyes, wide open and frantic but terribly dry. Footstep after footstep. She lead them to the camp. She pointed. Then she ducked and hid behind a large boulder, clutching her head and shaking violently as she tried to ignore the piercing screams splitting the night, and the sickening sound of metal sinking into flesh.

* * *

She lost her identity. She lost her name. She staggered on the edge of life and death, fending of her Orc captors by leading them to village after unarmed village. She kept herself alive for week after week, until the days turned into months, and she was skin on bone, hollow eyes in a carved haggard face. She stayed alive, by the blood of hundreds of others.

First she'd slip past the watch. It wasn't hard, when they saw only a starving peasant boy with short matted curls and a filthy face stumbling towards them, begging for charity. When they'd let her by, given her food, she'd do the worst, and find moment alone to set the thatched roofs aflame. Then run, because her job was done, run through the smoke to safety while the Orcs charged into the blaze, howling with bloodlust and hewing down every fleeing innocent that tried to escape the flames.

Month after month. It could not go on forever. It had to end. Either with her death or theirs.

* * *

She was so cold inside, so numb. She didn't know her own mind. No one to talk to but herself, and her thoughts chased each other in circles. Her nightmares – were they real? What was real? Reality was worse than a nightmare. Did that make it untrue? She was bone-achingly tired. But she was still sharp and still desperate, and still unwilling to die. She protected her life with every ounce of cunning that she had, because her still-beating heart was all she had left to guard.

Oh how she longed to hear human voices, kind gentle human voices, and how she longed to feel the friendly touch of human hands. It had been so long. Did she still remember how to speak? Did she remember how to smile, how to open her arms and embrace? She was so tired. She wondered whether sleeping was waking or waking was sleeping or if it was all one and the same, but none of it mattered, really, because she had no one to tell it to except herself.

At night behind her closed eyes, she saw the bloody faces of the children she had betrayed and imagined she heard them screaming.

* * *

The Wizard found her useful. So she would live for a while yet. He gave her a meal. One meal, and condescending, cruel instructions. Then he turned her out of his high black tower and left her on her own again, without even the Orcs whom she had become so used to. She stole a horse a few days later, from a village that had escaped plundering, and rode off to Edoras, towards human company. But she knew that she went to them to kill them, indirectly, the same way she had killed the others. This time, though, she had to weaken a fortress, an army, a king – and who knew what was in store for her when the last of them were dead.

* * *

She remembered how to smile, and how to laugh, and what her hands looked like when they were clean. She remembered human voices, gentle and warm with kindness. She remembered the dancing, flashing rhythm of facial expressions and the flying movement of hands during a conversation. She remembered the comfort of lying on blankets before a fire. She remembered the joy of a full stomach.

She felt a stabbing pain in her heart when she thought of betraying these people to the Wizard, and for the first time her fear of death was overshadowed so very slightly by another emotion. But not for long enough to make a difference. She still looked at their faces and knew they'd soon be cold and dead. She never questioned this, only felt sharp pangs of regret.

* * *

White-gold hair. A carved, angular face. Sharp, flashing blue-grey eyes. An inhuman voice, beautiful but terrifying. An Elf before her very eyes. An Elf that turned round and looked at her, saw the stunned look on her face, and smiled a smile so beautiful that she was frozen for several minutes after he rode away.

She was entranced, shaken to the core. She followed him at a distance, just watching, her eyes wide and bright as coals in her dirty face. Then one day he turned his hawk-like eyes on her once again, and called her near. She moved in a daze and sank to her knees at his feet. She felt his hand on her hair, heard his strange unearthly voice in her ears. And afterwards when she smiled at him, breath shaken from her lungs, he nodded in return or beckoned to her and she came and sat at his feet, listening to him talk to his companions and enjoying the lightness of his long fingers on the crown of her head.

Soon her fear of death was turned to mere vapor in her heart, replaced by a burning terror that her betrayal would kill him, this Elf who was so kind to her. There was a fire in her veins, a strength now rearing in her blood. She would not let him die.

* * *

They thrust a heavy axe into her untrained hands, pulled clinking chain-mail onto her thin quailing frame and strapped the weight of a helmet onto her head. Her heart leapt in terror. They told her not to be afraid. They slapped her on the back. They led her to the wall and told her to kill, or be killed.

She wanted to scream that she was a girl, that she did not want to fight, that she was scared and weak and tired and did not know how to wield a weapon. But far off in the distance, bright against the falling night and clinging wisps of fog, she saw the gleam of fire on his pale hair, and she held herself steady. She could not hide below in the caves while he risked his life up above, straining to hold back the tide of evil. So she clamped her chapped lips shut and tightened her rough, grimy fingers around her weapon, and when the Uruk-hai appeared in the distance, she did not flee.

* * *

She survived the battle. By luck or fate or her fortune of being small enough to pass unnoticed in the fray, she survived with only shallow wounds and lived to see another dawn, this time as a girl free from bondage. For now she could see that the Wizard was overthrown, and his honeyed words fell from her mind, leaving her at liberty.

But her Elf, her Elf -- he had gone, with only a brief smile and a word for her, the girl he now called a "brave esquire," and believed to be an orphaned peasant boy. She felt herself heavy, weighted with insignificance and deceit. She sat alone by the coolness of the stone walls of the Deep and spoke her name to the silence, wishing he could hear it. Yet she did not dare shed her disguise.

* * *

To Edoras, unnoticed in the crowd, then to Dunharrow, again by stealth. They paid no heed to a dirty-faced young boy riding in their midst, and if they noticed they dismissed him as someone else's squire. For that is the story she spun, to the few who questioned her joining them. To Dunharrow she made her road, because she did not know where to go or what to do, save that she wished for her Elf, and he was going to war. So to war she would go also, and if she died in the deed, then it was no tragedy. She could not think what to do with her life, except to throw it away or contrive to stay near the Elf who named her in jest his esquire.

What was in a life, anyways? It seemed to her they were made of memories and loved ones, for that is what she used to have in hers. But now her memories were bitter, and those she loved were gone. Better then that she should die and join them in pursuit of the last she held dear to her heart, than to go on without purpose.

When it occurred to her that she was now seeking death where once she had fought tooth and nail to avoid it, she laughed. But she couldn't seem to find that old tenderness for her beating heart that she used to cherish, and her body felt like extra weight clinging to the heels of her flying soul.

* * *

Pelennor Fields. To be there was quite different. To breath the stinking, smoky air and to feel in her veins the rush of adrenaline that came from seeing a mass of furious foes was very different. The air was hot and static, her breath came quick in her lungs. And suddenly she was aware of it, very aware of it: of the air passing easily in and out of her body, and of the skipping, light beat of her heart, and the feel of the helmet on her head. She was suddenly again aware of her life. And too late she felt a rush of wild, panicked emotion rise up her in her throat, for she realized that in her haste and sorrow at being left alone without guidance she had made a dire mistake. She did not want to die, not yet.

But too late for such grievances. The King blew his horn. Her horse surged forward. And with a throat dry in fear, she drew her long dagger. She had asked for death, and now she was sure she would receive it.

* * *


	2. Chapter One

I added some stuff to the prologue, which basically gets her to the Battle of Pelennor fields. It's not totally necessary to read, but definitely fleshes out the story a bit.

* * *

In her short fourteen years, Hathel had never felt such pain.

She lurched to one side, staggering drunkenly over the corpses littering the ground, heaving her weight onto her good leg while the other skittered uselessly behind her in the blood-stained earth. The gash in her side throbbed. She felt another wave of blood leak from the wound, trickling hot and sticky down her side and staining her filthy tunic.

She hauled herself over the still-twitching body of a horse. Her thin fingers scrabbled in the dirt, seeking purchase enough to pull herself another few feet forward. But her good foot tangled in the cloak of a fallen soldier, and she crashed onto her stomach.

Blinding pain. One of her broken ribs shifted. Unconsciousness was immediate, if only temporary, and for a moment she joined the motionless carcasses in their silent rest upon the battlefield.

A few moments later, she opened her eyes again with tremendous effort and forced the blackness away. Her vision was hazy, rimmed by a dark fog that threatened to creep inwards and blot out sight and feeling. She pressed one hand to the gaping wound in her side, feeling as though she were holding herself together, and felt the blood ooze through her fingers. Then she forced herself to her knees.

She must go onwards. She must. Until she found him. Because she would find him. He could not be dead.

Up again, weight resting on one leg and one arm, and she continued: stumbling, crawling through the wreckage of battle, all conscious thought banished from her head. She must keep going, though all she could see were swimming, sickening colors and all she could feel was her shattered left leg and the terrible rip in the side of her body. Keep going. Look for the kind face, the patient face. Listen for that voice.

Upright figures moved in her darkening vision, calling to one another and occasionally dipping lower as if examining the corpses. Hathel opened her parched and bleeding lips and forced a sound from her throat.

"Euhhk," she rasped. Her tongue was too swollen to move. "Heulk…" She gagged on the dryness.

Help me. Don't let me die.

She paused in her efforts, leaning against the body of a fallen troll and tilting her head back in exhaustion, sucking in the smoky air. Every part of her ached. Blood was caking itself onto the fingers pressed over her wound. Her shattered leg felt oddly numb. She would die here, a tiny, broken figure huddled against the corpse of a monster. They would throw her body onto a pyre to be burnt, seeing only the small, childlike face and short matted curls. A little Rohirric boy, tragically killed in the war to end all wars. Somebody might shed a tear for the young roundness of her cheeks and the frailty of her tiny fingers. But the tear would still be for someone she was not. No one would ever know now the full story of her life, and how she came to lie on this battleground wearing the guise of a ten-year-old boy.

I don't want to die. Please don't let me die.

Her eyes fluttered open a crack. The sky spun above her, just a blur of smoke and dirty sunlight. Her breath rattled in her chest.

I just want to see him. Please let me see him. Please let him live. Let him live.

She pulled her torso upright, her head sagging sideways. Her free hand seized the troll's armor, and with her last ounce of strength she pulled her broken body to its feet.

There, just there, a familiar figure through a veil of smoke. A gleam of white-gold hair, the long thin shadow of an Elven bow. He did not see her.

Hathel's cry of emotion ripped itself from her aching throat, coming out as a strangled gasp. She staggered forward on her good leg, arm flung forward and fingers splayed in a silent plea for aid. He was alive. He was alive. She felt hot moisture trickle through the grime on her cheeks and knew she was crying. A terrible, joyful sob forced itself from her mouth.

He heard. The head turned, he saw her. Though she couldn't make out his face, she knew he saw her. Her hand tightened around the gash in her side and she half-ran, half-fell forward, crying from relief. She heard his voice. Calling her name, though of course it was not really her name. He leapt agilely over the bodies in his way and reached her far quicker than she ever could have reached him.

She collapsed at his feet, her free hand clutching his boots, the side of her face resting against his knees. His voice was still calling to her, calling her false name and murmuring soothingly. Gentle hands pulled her fingers from her wound and stroked her short, matted curls away from her forehead.

Then she was lifted like a young child from the ground, her whole body throbbing painfully at the movement. She did not cry out, though. She was at peace. She was safe. More importantly, he was safe. In her last conscious moments, she blinked her leaden eyes open and tried to tell him her name. Her real name. So he would know the truth when she was dead.

"Hathel," she rasped. "Hathel."

But then the world went black.

* * *

Reviews much appreciated!

* * *


	3. Chapter Two

Hathel had closed her eyes on the battlefield without hope of ever opening them again. She had spoken her name to one whom she loved with all the strength and passion left in her thin weary little body, because she thought it was her last chance to do so. She had not thought, as she was born up out of the dust with consciousness slipping from her grasp and blood dribbling down her skin, that she would live to see another dawn. So it was quite a shock to her when suddenly out of the blackness, there came awareness.

"Hathel," a voice called. "Hathel, awake!"

I cannot awake, she thought in desperation. I am dead.

But the voice continued to call. "Come, Hathel, awake now, it has passed. Hathel…"

I am dead, I cannot. I would, but I cannot.

She was filled with sorrow. The voice was familiar, somehow, and vaguely she thought of a stern weathered face and deep-set grey eyes, looking down at her with pity. She wished she could answer his call.

"Hathel, awake!"

A sharp fresh scent cut through the haze hanging over her mind like the sweep of a knife. She took a deep breath convulsively, and felt that sweet tingling air surge into her eager lungs.

I am not dead.

The realization was as a shock to the chest. She was alive. She felt the air passing into her body and smelled that strange energizing freshness lingering about her nose. She felt the slow thump of her heart, steadily continuing the life she had thought was ended. And joy burst like fireworks inside her skull.

But the voice was still calling, insistently, commandingly. "Hathel, return to us. You have not gone on yet. Hathel, you must awake."

The most important thing now was that she answer this man, that she not frighten him further. So the first thing she did after realizing she was not yet lost to the world, was breathe the word, "Yes."

Chuckles broke like water over her head. The voice said, "Good. There you are, my friend. She will live a while yet."

And a second voice, low and accented and somehow unearthly, answered, "I had almost lost hope, Aragorn, but the hands of the King are truly those of a healer. The poor child..."

That voice. She knew that voice. It sang out like a bell in her memory, and her heart jolted at the sound. She forced her eyes open and struggled to sit upright.

But she could not. The world spun and faded before her widened eyes, and sickness rose in her throat. She fell back onto the pillows listlessly and let her eyes fall shut against the blinding glare and swirling colors, and immediately gentle hands were soothing her brow with a damp cloth, and the scent that had brought her back to consciousness was suddenly much stronger. She opened her eyes again, and found that after a second, she could see.

The first voice, to whom her reviving memory now assigned the name _Aragorn_ said, "Steady now, child, you must not be so hasty, it will be while yet before your body will have recovered enough for such movement." She turned her head slowly on the pillow and beheld a stern, care-worn face with clear grey eyes gazing steadily down at her.

Aragorn smiled slightly, though the expression was weary. "You took quite an injury, young lady. Your body will not be whole and hale for a very long time yet, I deem. You must rest."

A shadow moved on the corners of her vision, and then a familiar Elven face appeared beside Aragorn's, looking at her with concern and pity. Hathel felt her face move to form a smile. She felt the last tension in her muscles relax.

"My lord," she said hoarsely.

Legolas smiled at her, and her blood warmed. "Yes, I've not left this world yet. I am here."

Yes, he was there, beside her, quite alive and well. That more than anything made Hathel glad that she had survived her foolish rush into battle.

The battle... She felt questions bubble into being on the surface of her thoughts -- had the Rohirrim come in time? Surely yes, if she was safe in a bed in the City. But what of the Witch King, and the terrible men out of the East? And He, the nameless one, what of him? Was victory achieved in their valiant stand, or was there still a war to be fought? How fared her King, Theoden of the Mark? But she had not the strength to ask such questions. Already she felt tired from the exertion of waking, and her lids began to droop, though the ghost of her smile lingered on her face.

"Wait a moment, child, before you take your rest," said Aragorn gently but firmly, and took her hand. Hathel forced her weary eyes to stay open.

"Is your name, then, truly Hathel?" Aragorn asked firmly, peering keenly into her face as she struggled to stay awake.

"Yes," she sighed. "I'm sorry." Sorry for the deception, sorry I could not say so sooner, sorry but I had to. But she could not say all that yet. She was slipping into dreams.

Legolas said, laughingly, "Fitting." She wondered what he meant.

"Have you any relatives left, Hathel?" Aragorn asked.

That one was easy, just a light breath of a word. "No."

"All right then, child." Her hand was released. She closed her eyes. "You may sleep now."

She felt the air beside her stir, and knew that Aragorn had gone, but Legolas sang softly and smoothed her short curls. The mattress was so soft and her head so heavy. Waves of a deep and heavy sleep lapped upon her consciousness and her senses faded to the world around her.

She did not know whether or not she dreamed it, but she thought she felt the touch of his hand lift and his singing cease, and then she heard him say, "Goodbye. Pray that I return, my poor brave esquire."

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Please leave a review if you liked it, or you didn't, or you have some constructive criticism!


	4. Chapter Three

"To Mordor?" Hathel repeated in a strangled whisper, feeling horror seize her heart and squeeze it. Her entire body now felt distant from her mind, numb even. Her ears rang. Sounds seemed to come from far away.

The Warden stroked her hand gently and peered into her widened eyes with concern and sympathy. "He asked that I not keep this from you, against my better judgment – but, child, you must not grieve yourself over it! You must rest, and pray that they will return, for there is nothing you can do now but ensure that you are healthy enough to face whatever comes next."

"To Mordor?" she repeated in a daze. "Mordor?"

The Warden's face was a mask. "You must rest now. I am sorry I told you. The Elves may be wise, but leave a healer to do a healer's work!"

She did not hear him. A vision flashed like white fire into her brain, sending horror searing through her veins: his white gold hair, bloodstained and dirty, spread out on the dusty earth, his carved features now blank and empty, staring at an ashen sky – and an Orc hewing viciously at his lifeless body, mutilating her beloved Elf, tearing him apart as she knew with sickening certainty they would do if they killed him. Panic leapt into her throat and surfaced as a wavering, breathless scream.

"I will not rest!" Hathel shrieked, now feeling quite mad. Her heart was skipping rapidly and her spine tingled with blind, frantic terror. "I cannot rest! Let me up at once, let me go, let me go to him – I will not lie here while he goes to die, I will not, I will go too! Let me go, I must go, I cannot wait here, I must go now! They will kill him!" Her voice ended in a hoarse wail, and she beat the Warden's hands away in a frenzy. "My lord, my lord! Oh, my lord!"

"Ioreth!" shouted the Warden, as he fought to restrain her. He seized her flying wrists and forced them down, but she jerked upright, face frozen in a mask of mad grief, and twisted wildly to one side, heedless of her wounds. She screamed at the top of her lungs, forcing out all her frustration and fury and fear and sorrow. The world was black. Hopeless. He would never return from Mordor. The shadow would spread. She would not survive its coming.

He will not come back.

She saw again, in rising and spiraling terror, the smoke rising above the village where she had grown up, heard the sounds of her old companions being slaughtered as she cowered out of sight, smelled the sickening stench of rotting flesh that even now seemed to cling to her skin, returned to Pelennor fields and felt the Orc's blackened blade ripping into her side as she reeled away from his furious gaze; and the panic built inside her skull until she felt she would burst, as she saw clearly Legolas's beautiful Elven face stripped of all life, wavering before her unseeing eyes.

_Oh, my lord, my lord!_

"Ioreth!" The warden shouted again, and the next thing Haleth knew, the old nurse had come bursting into the room, forced a foul-tasting liquid down her throat, and she fell into a fuzzy drowsiness that smoothed the horror from her heart and eased her struggling limbs. She felt herself grow limp. It was a relief to fall once again into darkness, and to forget those terrible words.

"_Haleth child, Legolas has gone with the King to Mordor, for a last battle."_

* * *

When she awoke, she was calm. She blocked out the future, and blocked out the past, and refused to think of anything but the immediate present. There was nothing outside what she saw and heard and felt within the confines of her little room. Nothing at all.

For two days she existed in sullen, numb silence, staring blankly without thinking at the ceiling and eating her meals without tasting them. The Warden, who had begun tending to her personally since he had caught a glimpse of the blind panic that lurked beneath the surface of her control, made sure there was always a bowl of crushed _athelas _by her bed, and the fresh sharp scent kept her terror at bay and allowed her to keep a firm hold on the little shreds of hope she managed to unearth from the back of her mind. She clung to them, went over them again and again until they were worn and colorless thoughts, but still warm.

But on the third day of this, Haleth heard two young healers speaking outside her window. There was a breeze, and her curtains and the trees outside rustled, concealing most of their words. But she caught a name: Eowyn. And that roused her from her mental prison.

When the Warden came to check on her, she was sitting up, her face pale but calm, her wide dark eyes empty of the madness that had seized her before. She moved her lips into a thin smile, though it felt heavy and false.

"Hello," she said pleasantly as he began crushing a new batch of _athelas_. The air was immediately fresher and more alive. She felt stronger.

"Good afternoon, Hathel," said the Warden warily. "How are you feeling?"

"Much better, thank you," she replied. "Although I would like some sunshine. Might I go out to the gardens today?"

He considered her, his sharp healer's eyes narrowed in appraisal. She looked back calmly.

"All right," he conceded at last. "I'll send someone in to take you out. But only for a short while, and you may not attempt to walk under any circumstances, or your leg will never heal."

"Thank you," said Hathel quietly, and she meant it. After a few moments, in which the Warden felt her forehead, checked the splint on her left leg, and began wash his hands to change the bandage on the wound in her side, she ventured, "Is the Lady Eowyn here in Minas Tirith?"

The Warden sighed and shook his head. "The truth, my child, is far more grievous. She is in these very Houses, as we speak, recovering from a terrible wound. But there is hope yet for her, and in that I may rejoice, for so fair and sad a woman I have never seen, and I pray that she will live to enjoy happier times."

"A terrible wound?" Hathel echoed in surprise. She had not been expecting that. "How ?"

"It seems the Lady Eowyn is not so different from yourself," said the Warden dryly. "She too rode to battle in the guise of a man, although for what reason I cannot guess. You would do well to notice, my child, that both she and you are living proof that women do not do well in battle, and would do better to stay at home."

But Hathel was not concerned with gleaning a moral from their conversation. Now more than ever she wished to see the Lady of her country, the King's beloved niece. For they shared a common history, it seemed, if only in this one aspect.

"Might I see her, please, if she is well enough?" she asked timidly. The Warden's hands stopped in their careful ministrations and he stared at her. "She was my Lady, if you understand me," Hathel continued hastily. "The people of Rohan love her dearly. It would so put me at ease to speak with her, if only for a little while. She was our hope in dark times. Our White Lady."

But the Warden's face was grim. He continued to dress her wound and shook his weary head. "No, I cannot allow you to see her, not yet. I am sorry, for I know that she was beloved by all the people of the Mark. But she is not yet well enough, and I cannot compromise her health even for one of her own, not when she is so delicate."

Disappointment sank like a fog about Hathel's shoulders, and she sagged against her pillows. She had not realized how much she longed to see Eowyn until the request was denied. But the Warden was still speaking.

"But she had a companion, a halfling, I do not know if you have heard of them. He has recovered remarkably quickly, and I believe he is growing restless. If you wish, you may speak with him. Doubtless you two will have a lot to say to each other. He was yet another who was supposed to remain behind."

"A Halfling?" Hathel said in disbelief. "Not the King's esquire, the little creature he so doted on?"

The Warden's face tightened almost imperceptively at the mention of Theoden, but he answered, "Yes, that is he. Meriadoc is his name, I believe. Would you like me to ask if he is willing to meet you in the gardens? He is out there often, now."

"Yes," Hathel breathed. "Yes please, if you will."

"Very well." He stood and went to rinse his hands, having finished with her bandages. "I'll see to it. Now take some rest. He's a talkative little thing, and you look pale."

* * *

That's that. Next chapter should come very soon. As long as vacation lasts, this is what I do before bed. Thank you so much to the kind reviews you left, I'm so glad that you're enjoying the story. It means so much to me that you find my writing believable. I write mainly for myself, but it's the best feeling to know that others enjoy it as much as I do.

Lucky for Hathel, Legolas will be back soon, and things can get happy again.


	5. Chapter Four

The hobbit and the girl looked at each other shyly, honey-brown eyes gazing steadily into sable. At last Merry smiled easily, and brought his pipe to his lips.

"Well," he said brightly, blowing a stream of smoke towards the pale sky, "I hadn't thought to find anyone this close to my size around here, but there have been bigger surprises on this journey. How on earth did you end up looking like that?"

The two of them were seated in a small green garden by a low wall overlooking the Fields, with the Halfling swinging his short legs on a stone bench, and Hathel reclining comfortably on a plush, wheeled chair. Now as Merry grinned good-naturedly at her and eyed her heavy bandages and the little cuts on her face, she found her lips twitch into a shy smile.

"I fell off my horse," she told him, somewhat truthfully.

"And the horse then ripped you open and sat on your leg?" asked Merry skeptically, eyebrows quirked. "Must have been a vicious beast," he continued when she did not reply. "I hadn't thought the Rohirrim allowed such behavior from their steeds, but there's a bad egg in every stable, I suppose. " He gave her a shrewd look, and she found her smile growing until it was wide and genuine, and the shadows of old dimples appeared in her cheeks.

"No, he was a good horse, he did not mean for me to fall," she conceded. "But I broke my leg on the way down, I think, and the rest came soon after."

Merry blew a smoke ring and stared at her more avidly than ever, his amber eyes raking her face and short curls, taking in her thin fingers and bony wrists and the hollowness of her once-round cheeks. Then he said, humor gone and pity apparent in his voice, "How did you get here?"

Hathel felt heat rise in her pale cheeks, and she cast her eyes away from him, feeling suddenly ashamed of her ill-kept appearance for the first time since she had set eyes on Legolas.

"It was an accident," she said evasively, "I never really thought I'd make it. You rode with the Lady Eowyn?" she added quickly, looking back at him. He nodded, though her short answer had clearly not abated his curiosity.

"Only I didn't know it was her until the end," he said matter-of-factly, "Though I daresay it was for the best. I don't know what I would have done if I had known. Would've been a strain on the nerves, if nothing else." He chuckled to himself, and then looked at her appraisingly again, and grew serious. " Now let me propose an arrangement, because I haven't got anything to do, and it doesn't seem like you do either, and we're fit company for each other at least in the aspect of height."

Hathel smiled again. Merry continued, "Tell me how you ended up here, and all cut up like that, because it looks like a good story, if nothing else, and I'm fairly sure that it isn't normal for young girls to go to war, even in Rohan. And then I'll tell you how I got here, and I know for certain that's a tale to be proud of."

Hathel was silent. There were memories lurking in her head that she did not think about, that she did not want to think about, and she felt it would be a great and terrible effort to drag them up out of the depths of her thoughts to put them into words for a stranger, and through him be forced to relive them. There were things she had done that she had barred from her mind, because she knew that when looked at in the light of day, such things were beyond horrible. She considered, and her dark eyes went hollow, and she stared past Merry's waiting face into memories that she kept under lock and key.

But then the Halfling spoke, and it was with gentleness and understanding that he said, startling her from her internal struggle, "War leaves marks on everyone, and rarely the good kind, I think. I left home without knowing the greatness and grandeur and terror into which I was heading, and I have been changed forever by it, though I can't say whether or not for the better. But it was a long road from that to this, and I've seen some things I'd rather forget, and I can tell you have too – you don't have to tell me, if you don't want to. But for my part I've told my tale already, to friends after a parting, and I found it helped to talk of it. And now it has advanced a bit and there's more to say, and not all good, and I think it might help me again, so even if you'd rather keep silent, then I want to tell you how Meriadoc Brandybuck of the Shire, only a hobbit, ended up here in the City of Kings. You might find a bigger picture, as Bilbo sometimes says, and that can be comforting."

Hathel listened, and felt her heart stir and go out to this little strange creature, so candid and kind. He looked at her frankly, awaiting an answer, and in his plain hobbit face she thought, for an instant, she saw something very beautiful. So she sighed, and smiled, and said, "Merry Brandybuck of the Shire: only a hobbit, and so very wise. I'd love to hear your tale, and I will try to tell you mine."

Merry beamed at her, and puffed on his pipe, and then as an act of goodwill, began his story first, speaking of a sunny day in the Shire when he spotted old Bilbo Baggins suddenly disappear into thin air.

He spoke for hours, of screams in the night and Riders in black, of Rangers who were Kings and Elf-lords in hidden green valleys, of councils and valiant men, and of three whom he loved very dearly, Frodo and Pippin and Sam; and of great Wizards who battled Balrogs only to return unlooked for in the woods. He told her of silver trees with golden leaves, and Elves that lived high above the ground in their branches, and of Elf-Ladies so old that their eyes were terrible and bottomless as the reeling night sky but whose faces were beyond the beauty of this world.

Then his voice became low and sad, and he spoke of temptation and the fall of the great, and men who were slain by many arrows as they fought to protect those who could not help themselves, and he told of a terrible run through the plains, spurred on by Orcs and threatened by torment and death. But he emerged from that into a happier tone, and laughed as he told her of Ents and Entwives and the reason he was so very tall (for a hobbit, that is) and of the fall of Isenguard and the reunion of old friends, and of King Theoden, whom he had loved very much.

Then his story began to draw to a close as the day cooled and the sun moved towards the west, and he spoke dully of a terrible battle, in which he was bewildered and lost and afraid. But Hathel listened in amazement and heart-wrenching sorrow, for she learned that the little creature before her, smoking his pipe and swinging his feet, had wrought the downfall of the Witch King with a single stab from his blade, and then she learned that the King of the Mark, whom she had met only briefly but loved a great deal for his kindness, was dead, and tears trickled down her face. And Merry fell silent, into thought.

Hathel was too awed to speak. She sniffled and dabbed at her face, and stared in blatant amazement at Merry, who looked like the last person in the world to have been involved in such doings. And she thought of another hobbit, who must look very like this one, winding his way through Mordor with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"Merry, I think hobbits must be the most valiant of all people," she said at last. "You've moved me to tears, but I can't tell you how much I admire you and your kinsmen and all you've done. I never even knew hobbits existed, and here you are bearing all the hopes of Middle-earth in your hands."

Merry jolted out of his reverie, and shrugged. "Well, thank you very much, but I wouldn't go that far. It's just one hobbit, really, and it could've been anyone, but old Bilbo just happened to be the one to find the Ring. And anyways, it might not come to anything now." He looked to the east sadly. "Poor Frodo, and dear old Sam," he said softly.

They sat together in companionable silence for awhile, each lost in their own thoughts, but the shadows were growing long and Merry at last turned back to Hathel.

"Now it's your turn," he said cheerfully. "Goodness, I don't know when the last time was I went so long willingly without a meal. Next time you see one of those healers, give a shout. It's high time they brought us something to snack on."

Hathel's grin was faint. Now that it came to it, she wasn't sure she wanted to begin her story. But Merry was right, and she realized now, more than ever before, that she was just one person affected by this sweeping tide of War, and her tale was just one of very, very many. She leaned back in her chair and sighed deeply, and cast her thoughts far back to before she understood what death meant. Then she forced the words from her lips, and began.

"I was born in a village in the far East of Rohan," she said quietly. "And nothing ever happened out of the ordinary, or if it did I was too young to notice. I never saw the evil coming, until it did. I didn't know that War was brewing. I didn't know anything outside of my daily life. But one day I was out with the sheep, far out on the plains, with five other children. We were playing as we watched the herds, and paying little mind to anything else. But then we saw smoke in the distance, rising from our home, which we could not see, but which we knew must be burning…"

She told him hollowly of returning to find the village burnt to the ground, all those within dead or missing, and the horses fled. She recalled the nausea swamping her senses as she looked at the bodies strewn about the wreckage, and told him how she had vomited, unable to contain her horror.

"But I knew we couldn't stay," she said. "The others were looking for their parents, but I didn't want to find mine, to see them dead. I found some weapons and took them, just in case, though to this day I do not know how to use them, and then took the clothes off a young boy. I had heard what wild-men and Orcs did to young girls if they caught them, and I was afraid. I cut off my hair. I decided I would no longer be Hathel, but Hathas. Like my brother, whom I never found. And I would survive if I could."

Merry's face was drawn and grim, and he looked like he might halt her in her tale, but now she had begun she couldn't stop. She told him of how the surviving children had wandered for weeks on the plain, surviving on roots and rabbits and always moving, always heading for where they knew there was a town, but always finding it too late and receiving a graveyard instead of a warm welcome. Then she gathered all her will and told him of the evening she went out alone away from their camp to find medicinal herbs for one of the boys who had cut himself on his father's dagger, which he did not know how to wield.

"I heard them before they saw me, but I wasn't fast enough to run away, and not strong enough to fight, nor clever enough to hide where there was no shelter but grass. They caught me. A band of huge black Orcs, and I was too afraid to breathe. Worse than death, I thought of what they'd do if they discovered I was not a boy… And there were so many of them…"

She told the hobbit, in the barest of terms and with the littlest detail possible, how she had led the Orcs to her camp for them to feast on her companions, and promised to get them more, if they just let her live.

Speaking of the past dulled Hathel to the present, and soon words were falling from her lips without her hearing them, and her eyes grew blank and withdrawn, and she spoke dully, for in her head she was far away. Weeks passed in her memory, and she lived them, remembering every minute and every sensation.

"After a while I stopped fearing they'd kill me. I had gotten too skinny and tough and dirty for them to want, and I did well for them… I had to, I was so afraid. I did very well for them… I don't know how many towns I led them to, and let them into. I just wanted to live. All I wanted was to live.

"And one day they told me they were not interested in plundering anymore, and I thought they would at last let me go, but they brought me to Isengard, and handed me over to the Wizard. He saw I was weak and terrified and far from noble. He made me believe Rohan was going to fall, fast and soon and terribly, but told me I could escape its ruin if I did this one favor for him, and went with the King to Helm's Deep. He wanted me to send him messages, through his crows – I _hate_ crows, they're vicious birds – of what people were saying and doing. And if I could he wanted me to poison them. The King and Aragorn, I mean. His voice… I could not refuse. I thought it was all true, and it was my only way to survive, and maybe be happy afterwards, if I pleased him. I see now he didn't care if I succeeded or failed or lived or died, he only wanted to use me for as long as he could, for whatever little use I could be to him. I would never have gotten any reward.

"But then," she breathed, and a small hazy smile graced her lips, "I saw an Elf. I hadn't known they were real… and he was beautiful beyond anything I had ever seen…"

Merry was now smiling as well, and nodding as if he understood, as she spoke of Legolas and his kindness to the little boy who began to follow him, awed, and of her adoration for him because of it.

"I started ignoring the crows. I did not want any harm to come to him. At Helm's Deep I kept myself from running."

At last she finished her tale, telling in a rush her despair after Legolas left her for the Paths of the Dead and of her desire to go to battle and see him a last time, or die in the attempt. She described her sudden horror at her decision when she beheld the besieged city of Minas Tirith, and finally told of her wild fall from her horse as it was driven mad with fear at the sight of the mumakil, and how she played dead on the ground after an Orc tore open her side with his blade as she tried to flee.

"I thought I had died when Legolas found me. But somehow I'm still here, after all of it. I don't know what happens next. But I know my name is Hathel, not Hathas, and I am only a peasant girl and I do not belong here, where the world's fate will be decided. I should have died months ago, but I was too foolish to see it."

A breeze swept the courtyard, and Hathel found her cheeks were cold and wet. She had not known she was crying. But she was, and the tears were falling hot and thick down from her eyes. She sucked in a deep breath and let out a shaky sigh, and then found with no small amount of surprise that she felt lighter and calmer than she had in months. It was as if a great burden had been lifted from her stooped shoulders, made less horrible by the act of sharing it, and now she looked about her at the rustling leaves of the trees in the gloaming, and at the lights of the Houses through the shadows, and she felt she could sleep easily, without the aid of drugs for dreamless sleep, for the first time in nigh on a year.

She turned to Merry and smiled. He was looking at her intently, though not with pity.

"I believe I've seen the bigger picture, Merry," she said. The hobbit took her hand in his little warm ones.

"We're the same height, or just about, you and I," he said. "But you're ever so much younger. Just a child still, I deem. We both never expected anything like this to happen, and I'm sure nobody who could've guessed would've thought we'd survive. A hobbit and a young girl. Unlikeliest of adventurers! But here we are, against all odds, and that is a comforting thought." He patted her hand gently and sighed. "Gandalf once said there are greater forces in this world than evil. Maybe that's why we're here, you and I."

And to herself, deep within in the warmest of her thoughts, she added another name to the list of people she loved with all the strength in her weary little heart: the hobbit of the Shire, little Merry Brandybuck.

* * *

Aw. I love Merry. Please review! I know this was a bit long and didn't really say anything new... but it was very fun to write, and fleshed out the story a bit, I think, and gave Hathel a brighter perspective on things. Legolas, Aragorn, and the rest should return next chapter.

Immense thanks to all those who left such kind reviews of the last chapter. I hope the story continues to please you all.

Oh, and note on heights. Haleth is actually taller than Merry, being fourteen, even if she is small for her age and malnourished. But she's the closest to his height that he's seen in a long while, so he keeps returning to it.


	6. Chapter Five

I re-wrote this chapter because the last version sounded too forced. And it was too long. Long really isn't me. This one just came out, and it's much better, I think, even if it's less detailed. So. On with it. I dunno when the next one'll be up.

--linebreak--

One week later:

Hand-in-hand with Merry, she watched, breathless, as the shadow loomed suddenly huge and malevolent above the dark mountains of Mordor, grasping hungrily at the wheeling sky and reaching its arms out towards their tiny frozen bodies in the gardens of Minas Tirith...

And then, it was gone. Vanished. Blown to just a memory with a breath of wind, and the sun burned very brightly in the sky, as if in triumph.

Hathel let out a breath she had not realized she held. Dimly beside her she heard Merry shouting and laughing and dancing about. But the world seemed far away, and for the moment she was alone in her head, dazed with wild joy. She couldn't laugh. She did not have the breath. She smiled until her cheeks were sore.

_Frodo! _Merry was crying. _Frodo!_

"Frodo," whispered Hathas. "Thank you."

--linebreak--

The days passed like a dream: hazy, unreal, golden. Hathel was happy, lighter than she had been in what felt like ages, and yet not so. For Merry had been summoned away to Osgiliath to meet the victorious army on their return to the City, but no summons had come for Hathel, and she realized with growing dread that none ever would. For what would happen to her now was not the concern of the great lords, not even the Elf who so many times showed her care and kindness – she was alone again, though she had not realized it until now. What would become of her?

She did not wish to return to Rohan. She thought she might stay in Minas Tirith, her place of rebirth, and perhaps try to carve a life from its walls of white stone. Yet her heart grew slow and heavy, for her true desire was to remain with Legolas, even if at a distance.

He will go home, she told herself. And that is where he belongs. You must stay here. You are a human girl. You do not belong in the realms of the Firstborn.

But it made her sad, and she grew more and more melancholy until the day Merry's summons came, demanding that his friend be released from the Houses of Healing for a day to see his return and the crowning of the King. The Warden relented, and Hathel's hope was rekindled. A last time then, she would look upon that perfect, angular Elven face. She would say thank you for everything, and kiss his hand.

Then... how did they say it? Namaarie. She would say goodbye.

--linebreak--

Two young healers scrubbed her clean in a porcelain basin, until her skin grew soft and her hair smelled not of sweat but of lavender. Then they helped her into a soft white dress and laced her in so that she felt for the first time that she was truly shedding the guise of a boy. And when her face fell at the sight of her gaunt and pinched reflection in the mirror, they wove a glossy green ribbon into her coppery curls, and gave her a bouquet of flowers to throw to the soldiers if she wished. She reserved it in her thoughts for Merry, wisest and dearest of friends.

--linebreak--

"Merry," said Hathel, and smiled though the expression lacked warmth and her voice was dull. She handed him the flowers. He took them without a thank you, his face concerned.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

Nothing. She would move on. "I do not know what will become of me now, or if I will see you again, or anyone else." The words were out before she could think. She clamped her lips shut and wished she could take them back, swallow them whole back into her secret thoughts. She could not burden Merry, who had already done so much.

But he was smiling, in his inexplicable hobbit way. "Never see us again!" And he laughed, as if it were ridiculous. Hathel dared to hope.

"Don't be silly, of course _I'll _see you, for my part, you're my friend! I don't know how you were raised, but in the Shire it's considered terrible manners not to keep in contact. I expect you'll be seeing quite a lot of me, actually. Special friend of the king and all. But really. Come along now, you'll want to meet Pippin and Frodo and Sam, and see Legolas, and show Aragorn how well you've healed... and I don't suppose you know Gimli? You must. Come say hello to him as well, then. You're here by my special invitation, don't think I spent all last week telling you about my friends just to have you run off without meeting any of them."

Hathel's cheeks flamed. She stuttered her gratitude, tried to tell Merry in clumsy ham-handed words how thankful she was for his kindness. He waved her off.

And in her head, Hathel revised her plan for the future. If possible she would join the King's household, perhaps even as a maid, so as to be within reach when Merry and the others visited.

--linebreak--

Hathel was stricken speechless. Legolas's fingers were light on her hair, and his voice spoke the words above her head, yet she could not believe it was true. Her heart paused in its beating to listen, her breath stopped passing from her lungs. Her veins buzzed with wild, fierce joy. But it could not be true.

"Are you certain of this, Legolas?" Aragorn was asking. In her head, Hathel seconded his question fearfully. "It is... quite an expense, you realize. Humans live differently than Elves, with more needs, and as she grows you must consider providing a dowry, which could be considerable, I don't know..."

"Money is not an issue." His Elven laughter rained down upon her head. "Have you seen my father's treasury? And part of it is my due, though I know I will never spend it. I have never used any of it, in all my years. Why not bestow it upon one who needs it? Look at her – look at her face, Aragorn. No child should look so worn. What will she do now but struggle more? She deserves an easy life, after this war."

Her eyes were hot. She realized she was crying, though with joy or hope or fear that it was all a dream she could not tell.

"She is very young, Legolas," Aragorn said skeptically. "You mean to provide for an entire lifetime of costs, and if you mean to give her an "easy" life, the expenses will only increase."

More laughter. "A lifetime? I can afford to pay for a lifetime, as short as your human lives are. I understand your concerns, my friend, but I do not share them. Money aside, it is a kindness I wish to bestow upon one of whom I have grown fond, and who needs it. If you must have a concrete reason, say I am paying her back for her short service as my squire, say she did an excellent job grooming my horse those few times."

Aragorn's face was unconvinced. Hathel's heart resumed beating at an accelerated pace. Legolas knelt beside her chair so that his face was level with hers, and he smiled.

"Well, my squire, dry those tears, you have no need for them now. I take you gladly into my care."

"Your care?" asked Hathel breathlessly.

"Yes," he said. "I cannot take you with me, child. Understand, I cannot. But you may live here if you wish, or in your home country, and you will have everything you desire."

Everything she desired. She wiped at her wet face, shaking her head despite her joy, but he only laughed. Everything she desired. She seized his hand and kissed it, sobs shaking her shoulders.


End file.
